Miscommunication
by APlagueOnBothYourHouses
Summary: Emily comes to visit the team. There is a misunderstanding. Emotions ensue. Rated for the F-bomb. Mentions Raeve. Reid and Emily as FRIENDS. Birthday present for UnintentionalAuthor. How many sentence fragments can I fit into one summary?


**A/n: This fic is a birthday present for my friend, UnintentionalAuthor. She is very cool and you should go read some of her things. **

**WARNING: I did not edit this as much as I would have liked to, as I am kind of on a tight schedule. **

**Note to UA:**

**_BRO I WROTE U A THING hows that for awesome gift amiright yeah? Happy birthday anyways, I look forward to doing driving with u. Congratz on being a year older, and embrace your _****_wisdom_****_* elderliness with grace. I will be joining you shortly._**

***i laughed when i wrote that so i had to leave it in ok**

I am haunted  
by the feeling that she is saying  
melting lords of death, avalanches,  
rivers and moments of passing through,  
And I am replying, "Yes, yes.  
Shoes and pudding." -Jack Gilbert

**Miscommunication**

Reid felt good.

Well, no; that wasn't true.

Reid felt _less bad._

He wasn't sure he'd ever feel good again; wasn't even sure that he even knew what 'good' was, not after . . . what had happened to _her_.

But, in the interest of not thinking about it _(her)_, Reid pushed that aside, basking in his current not-bad-ness. This might've been the best he'd felt since _the incident_, and he was going to seize the opportunity to be with his friends. His team, the friends that he knew worried over him, over how quiet he'd become. He felt guilty about worrying them, but he admitted to himself that he was glad he had people who cared enough to do so.

They also, it appeared, cared enough to invite him out to dinner tonight. They said they'd prepared a special surprise for him, that maybe it'd cheer him up a little. As it was Garcia who'd informed him of the event, and she'd done it in her typically flamboyant manner, Reid had been a tad sceptical about the whole affair. He'd retained this doubtfulness until Hotch stepped in and said that the whole team had been a part of the planning process. Reassured by their stone-faced leader, Reid promised his attendance.

That explained what he was doing outside of the fancy, Chicago-style pizza joint (obviously Morgan's choice) at seven p.m. on a thursday night.

Without further dalliance, Spencer strode into the pizza parlour, ever-present leather satchel bumping against his hip as he walked. Once he entered, he scanned the area for the table occupied by familiar faces, and was happily surprised to notice that a well-missed face had joined them.

A smile split his face, as he understood the surprise his team had planned for him, and some dim part of him realized that it was the first proper smile he'd smiled since _that night_.

The speed of his footsteps increased as he hurried over to the stylishly distressed table occupied by his teammates, and Reid exclaimed, "Emily!"

Emily Prentiss rose from her seat and met Reid's hug with one of her own.

* * *

Emily Prentiss was going to enjoy her vacation if it was the last thing she did, _goddamnit._

It'd been quite a substantial amount of time since her last breather, and she knew she needed it. The last months had been nothing but a bombardment of fast-paced, high-stress cases, and she literally could not remember the last time she had sat down to a proper, non-fast-food meal.

So if she was a little bit firm on her plans for a relaxing holiday, it was fairly understandable. About three days into her two-week break, Prentiss received a call from Garcia, who invited her back to the good old U.S.A. The peppy analyst didn't give concrete reasons behind her somewhat abrupt request, except that "we miss you."

While that was sweet and touching, Prentiss hadn't spent the majority of her adult life as a profiler for nothing, and there was something else in Garcia's voice that suggested more than a sudden need to reconnect with old friends.

Prentiss had briefly toyed with the idea of leaving her old co-workers out to dry, leaving whatever need it was that they had for some other person to take care of. The more selfish part of her whispered, _they've got a replacement-me, let _her _deal with it. I'm on vacation!_ But luckily, Prentiss was very adept at ignoring that particular selfish impulse, and so that was how she ended up ordering pizza in a surprisingly upscale pizza joint, and poking fun at Morgan as they waited for the others to arrive.

Slowly but surely, the rest of them trickled in, JJ joined with Will and Hotch with Beth. Blake was introduced to Prentiss for the first time, and they quickly hit it off, bonding between their common experiences as female profilers in a predominantly male field.

Prentiss was surprised at the fact that Reid was the last one to join them, but dismissed the matter as trivial. Nobody else was surprised; after Maeve's untimely death, Reid had lost his characteristic timeliness.

What Prentiss could not dismiss, and instead stored in her head without comment, was the surprise Reid displayed upon seeing her. It was obvious that he hadn't expected to see her there, and yet all of the others clearly were in the know. She wondered at that; wondered, again, at the real purpose behind her impromptu visit. But she chose not to dwell on it, instead simply embracing her favourite genius and noticing that he seemed skinnier than ever.

"Emily!" he exclaimed, a smile stretching across his face.

"Hey, Reid!"

"It's so good to see you, Emily."

"You too, Reid. You have no idea how much I've missed your statistics."

Reid chuckled at that, and Prentiss expected him to continue the conversation by inserting one of his aforementioned statistics, but he merely took his seat and glanced at the menu.

Prentiss was beginning to suspect that her sole reason for being here was to cheer Reid up, but she had no idea what had put him into this funk in the first place.

"So how are you all? Any interesting cases, new movies I've missed?"

And with that, the old team was back together, talking and laughing and bantering with each other, exchanging stories and exaggerating facts for comedic effect. Prentiss told about how incompetent her fellow Interpol agents were, in comparison to the BAU.

"I swear, they don't even know the difference between a sociopath and a sadist."

"Aww, you _miss us_!" Morgan teased her childishly, eyebrows quirked in that special way that only Morgan could do.

Prentiss felt a pang of regret at her decision to leave these marvelous people behind her, but it was short-lived; she was truly happy at Interpol, no matter how incompetent certain agents were or were not. She was comfortable in a way that she couldn't be at the BAU, not after the whole Doyle debacle.

"I don't miss _you_," she rebutted, but the faint hint of a smile made it known to all that she was jesting.

"You wound me," Morgan said, clutching his heart dramatically, miming unspeakable agony.

JJ quickly interrupted the banter before it could go on longer, moving on to more important matters. "So how are the stores in London?" she begged to know, "Are the prices better or worse?"

Prentiss let out a pained moan at this. "Oh, god, they're so much worse. I wanted to buy some flats, and they were 55 pounds!"

Reid interjected at this, and Prentiss noted that it was the first time he'd willingly joined the conversation. "That's 88 dollars and 40 cents."

JJ was aghast. "For _flats?!_ That's insane!"

"I know."

Garcia said, "Well, there's no other option. I'm afraid that you'll just have to move back here for some therapy shopping."

"Oh, but one thing America can't beat is the tea. I don't know what they put in that stuff, but it's amazing. You can import stuff all you want, but it won't come close to matching the real thing."

Conversations drifted onwards, and as it is wont to, topics ranged far and wide. Never, Prentiss noticed, did Reid speak without first being spoken to.

It was when most everyone had finished their entrees and was thinking about dessert when the climax of the evening was reached. Somehow, the conversation had shifted so that Morgan was needling Prentiss about so-called 'hot British crushes' on her co-workers.

Slightly flustered (because there _was_ this guy, but it wasn't like she would ever tell Morgan that. . . ), Prentiss's immediate plan of action was to shift the attention away from herself and onto someone else.

"What about you, Reid? Found anyone special while I've been away?"

The reaction was immediate. The small smile Reid had been wearing all evening vanished, and the team's silence became less friendly and more horrified.

The pause stretched on as Morgan's accusing eyes dug themselves at her own, clearly asking, '_how could you?'_

The rest of the team stared either at Reid or Emily, occasionally switching between the two, and they all wore the same horrified expression.

Reid himself looked like a mixture of _I've-been-slapped-unexpectedly-in-the-face-by-a-smelly-haddock_ and _someone-just-kicked-my-three-legged-puppy-for-no-reason-at-all._

Prentiss was extremely confused, and was just opening her mouth to ask some variation of 'what did I say?' when Reid beat her to it and excused himself.

"I- uh. I'm going to the bathroom."

With that, he practically bounded away from the table, breaking the spell of silence with his rapid and unexpected exit.

Morgan was the first to speak. "Prentiss! What the _fuck_ was that?!"

Before she could respond, Garcia butted in. "Wait, Morgan, I don't think any of us actually told her about Maeve. I know I didn't; I was too worried about Reid."

JJ realized, "And the rest of us just assumed someone else had already told you. . . ."

The realization was a solemn one; or, at least, it would have been if Prentiss had known what was going on.

"Wait, wait. Who's Maeve?"

And so it was that her former team narrated the dark tale to her, and her heart ached for her innocent young friend. She understood now the terrible transgression she'd committed, albeit unknowingly, as Blake laid out in clear terms how her friend was dealing with the trauma - which was, unsurprisingly, 'not well'.

Silence fell after the truth had been revealed, and Prentiss had never regretted her words more.

Soon enough, Reid was returning, wearing his 'I'm-going-to-pretend-that-nothing-has-happened-and-you'd-better-go-along-with-me-or-else' face. The rest of them obliged, albeit reluctantly, in Prentiss's case.

The friendly, open quality of the conversation prior to Prentiss's blunder was difficult to regain, but they prevailed sometime after desserts had arrived, for those who had ordered them.

It was a fact that everyone noticed but no one commented on that neither Emily nor Spencer spoke another word, for the rest of the dinner.

The last forks scraped dully against their plain white plates, signalling that the meal was over. JJ and Will were the first ones to depart, saying that they needed to relieve Henry's sitter.

Hotch and Beth quickly followed, saying much the same.

Morgan, Garcia, Blake, and Rossi stuck around for another fifteen minutes or so, before they were also pulled away, either by the siren's song of sleep or by other obligations.

Despite Reid's valiant attempts to prevent the situation, he and Prentiss were the last ones at the restaurant. They walked out in silence, but once their feet hit the rough concrete of the sidewalk outside, Prentiss grabbed Reid's quickly-disappearing arm, tugging him back to her lightly.

It was clear that he did not want to talk about it. But Prentiss was nothing if she wasn't stubborn.

"Reid, I'm sorry. My comment was unwarranted and I was not aware of the situation behind it, and I'm sorry."

"It's alright, Prentiss. Really, it is," he added, when she appeared ready to protest. "I just- I wasn't expecting it. I thought for sure someone must have told you about it; I was actually almost offended that you didn't try to talk to me about it, but it's _alright._ Really."

"Okay, good, then. Thank you, Reid." Prentiss released her grip on his arm, but there was something in her voice that suggested that she had something else to say.

"It was just a miscommunication; it's fine."

When the seconds ticked past and neither of them had moved from their respective spots, Reid spoke again. "What else do you want to say?"

Prentiss wasn't sure if she had the right to this question, not after her actions today. But she shrugged her shoulders mentally, and put it out there anyways.

"Well, I was just wondering who could have caught the eye of the esteemed Dr. Reid, is all."

It was her own, roundabout way of asking about this Maeve. First and foremost, Prentiss was Reid's friend. If he'd given his heart away to someone else, however briefly, she wanted to know about the receiver.

Reid, thankfully, understood her meaning. A look Prentiss had never seen in his eyes was present, and with a sinking feeling she realized just how hard Reid had fallen for Maeve.

"My god, Prentiss, she was amazing. There are more than 250,000 words in the english language - not counting slang and technical terms - and I can't string any of them together to fully describe her. I don't know if the team told you this, but I only actually saw her the once; our relationship, as it were, was conducted mostly through phone calls and letters. But it was no less real because of it. She was smart - brilliant, even - and Prentiss, we liked the same books. _Nobody_ likes the same books as me, except my mom. And now, I can't even picture her face because the first time I saw it, she ended up dead."

Reid's voice cracked at the last word, and his eyes had the wet look that suggested tears.

Acting purely on instinct, Prentiss wrapped her friend in a tight hug.

Neither of them were fond of the gesture on a regular basis, but Prentiss decided that there were exceptions to every rule, and if anyone needed a hug, it was Reid. Their own discomfort at the gesture and the height difference made for an awkward experience, but not everything was meant to be elegant, least of all grief.

In the comfort of Emily's arms, Reid lost his restraint. His shoulders shook from the force of his tears. They lost track of how long they'd stood there, but eventually the quaking slowed and Reid whispered brokenly, from where his head rested despondently on her shoulder, "Why does every good thing that happens to me have to be taken away?"

Prentiss didn't have an answer. She'd often wondered the same thing about her innocent friend; why was the universe so set on watching him suffer? So all she could do was tighten her grip and croon wordlessly, comfortingly.

Eventually, Reid pulled away, wiping his cheeks of tears with his sleeve in a way that Prentiss assumed was meant to be sneaky, but really there was no reason to do so, and he couldn't hide the fact that the right shoulder of her sweater was now much more damp than it had been.

But what else were friends for?

"Thank you, Emily," Reid said, solemnly.

"Anytime," she asserted, and at his half-hearted nod, she reinforced, "Seriously, _anytime_. I hate being so far away from you guys, and I want to be able to help with things, but I can't do that if I'm not told that there's something wrong. So don't be a stranger; pick up a phone. I mean, if you can fall in love over it, surely we can stay in contact."

Emily considered it an accomplishment when Reid's lips quirked in a half-grin at that, and the two departed, Emily for her empty hotel room and Reid to his empty apartment.

Grief is the price we pay for love. -Queen Elizabeth II

Holy crap, that went deeper and more emotional than expected. Sorry for feels. UA, you'd better appreciate the time I spent on this. Because there was a _lot _of it.

~Pseu


End file.
